During the last seven days there have been glitches in the work of the WhatsApp messaging application on the territory of China, which prompted speculation about the intention of the Chinese authorities to block the work of the messenger. WhatsApp is the latest available in mainland China Facebook products. Earlier in China, the social network Facebook and the popular service for exchanging images Instagram.

In mid-July this year, Chinese censors began blocking video chats, sending photos and other files using WhatsApp, but a few weeks later the restrictions were lifted. Last week, users could not access a number of service functions, including sending text messages. Violations in the WhatsApp operation were observed from September 20, September 25, the service completely stopped its work, however, on Tuesday, September 26, the functions of sending messages, audio and images again became available, according to the Financial Times.

Earlier, the Chinese government repeatedly took measures to partially block various Internet services or to slow down their work so much that they became useless. Censorship has forced many Chinese users to switch to faster, but government-controlled media, such as the Tencent WeChat service.

Inhabitants of mainland China can still use forbidden services in the country if they connect to virtual private networks (VPNs) that provide communication channels on servers outside of China. However, over the past few months, Chinese authorities have tightened control over VPN services. Even if the networks are working, users may not always be able to access some of the resources banned in the PRC.